About Terribly Write

With the billions and billions of pages floating out there in the Web galaxy — and the billions and billions of words they contain — it’s no surprise that you’ll notice an occasional typo or grammatical slip. But, every typo, misspelling, wrong word, and punctuation misstep erodes the credibility of a website.

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205 Responses to “About Terribly Write”

Hi Laura,
Stumbled upon your blog via a Google alert with the headline, “Close but no cigars.” As a professional copywriter, myself, I find your site is very informative. I’ll be coming back. I’m also going to pass it on to our proofreader.
Thanks,
Gary Korb

You’re a cruel, cruel, but incredibly correct person 😉 I live in dread of the day something I’ve written shows up here! (Thank the gods I don’t work on Shine; well, I’m glad about that in general, heh). Keep on truckin’!

Oh, dear! Keep it up. And remember, as I edited last week, riesling is i before e, sangiovese doesn’t have extra anything but fruit (no additional s, accent etc) and Médoc does have an accent and plenty of chutzpah.
And we couldn’t say “cheers” without wine.

Dear curious,
No, I am not a copyeditor who was let go by Yahoo!. Surprisingly it takes very little time to post entries to this blog each day. Anyone who visits Yahoo! can spot the minor and major errors very quickly. And many of the slip-ups reported on Terribly Write are sent to me by my loyal readers.

I hope you are getting paid for all this work because otherwise it seems like a sad existence to just look for errors within the Yahoo! sites. We should hire you since you clearly are doing a better job than our own editors.

Hey, I’m a fan of TW and I don’t imagine it’s either a huge time expenditure or a sad existence. Every so often I learn something new about writing or grammar from TW. Teaching people about the English language through examples is interesting and in no way sad. And it can’t take too much time because Yahoo! is such a huge source of errors that finding them must be incredibly easy.

If I thought you were the REAL Jerry Yang, I might point out that a really sad existence might be acting as a failing CEO of a failing company.

Just trying to understand your motivation here. You left Yahoo! yet choose to devote a decent amount of time and effort to monitoring the site. A sense of duty to your former employer? Inability to let go of old habit? Glee at the failings of your diminished editorial team? You are clearly a skilled editor with a sharp eye, but your enthusiasm for doing this feels somewhere between puzzling and disconcerting.

Dear curious/Simply curious/whatever other troll handles you use: Just trying to understand your motivation here. You are clearly a Yahoo! employee, yet you choose to devote a decent amount of time and effort to monitoring the TW site and questioning the motives of the blogger. A sense of duty to your employer? Embarrassment at the publicizing of your mistakes? A desire to put down someone who’s trying to educate people about good writing? Your enthusiasm for doing this feels somewhere between puzzling and disconcerting.

I don’t presume to speak for the blogger, but I see (and appreciate) this site for what it is: an attempt to teach grammar and writing skills through correction of bad examples. The choice of Yahoo! as the source of bad writing examples seems apt, as it restricts the search for errors to a single error-rich site and saves time.

Perhaps you should spend less time questioning the motives of the blogger and more time questioning the skills of the writers and editors whose work is displayed on the site (yourself included, I would presume).

It’s one thing to educate people about good writing, and another to fixate on the site where you used to work. Why not find examples from all over the InterWeb? The Yahoo! focus casts a blemish on otherwise great work.

As the Real Old Man has said, “The choice of Yahoo! as the source of bad writing examples seems apt, as it restricts the search for errors to a single error-rich site and saves time.”

May I suggest that if you choose to enter comments in the future, you enter them using an original alias and not one of a loyal reader of Terribly Write. I wouldn’t want others to think that the Real Old Man feels that a “blemish” is being cast on “otherwise great work.” Clearly he does not.

This the genuine Old Man, and I am speaking to the troll who think it’s cute to copy my name:

If you want to talk about fixations, I suggest you work really hard on your obsession with the blogger’s motives. If you really think this is “great work,” you shouldn’t worry about where the examples come from – only about the lessons they teach.

But you’ll excuse me if I find your statements less than convincing. Anyone who changes his/her posting name as frequently as you do and copies the names of others hasn’t got a claim to much credibility.

anonymous: who says the copy editors might be getting laid off from yahoo!? yang and co. haven’t announced yet exactly who will be affected by the layoffs. if they know what’s good for them, they’ll keep the copy editors around — they’re obviously much-needed.

I agree with the real Old Man. It’s a great value to have real examples of errors pointed out, regardless of the source of those errors. Yes, it shows a certain lack of talent and care among writers of those examples. Generally, when someone finds errors in my writing, I’m glad to have the feedback. Improving is part of my job as a writer and editor. So is thick skin.

It is obvious that most of these comments are made up by the owner of the blog, by grumpy Yahoo! employees, or by people with too much time on their hands. And is it true that editors at Yahoo! are purposely making errors to see if “Terribly Write” will notice? Desperate cries for attention???

To the pretend “Old Man”, to “Muah”, and to all of the trolls: get a life and find some errors rather than sititng here whining.

Once again, this is the genuine Old Man, forced to reply to the troll who has now posed twice as Old Man. Apparently we can add stupidity to the list of your flaws, which we already know contains dishonesty.

If you don’t like the blog, don’t read it. Ironic you should caution others to “get a life” when so much of yours is spent trolling this site.

Dear Phony Old Man who posted 12/20 at 1:05 am:
Judging from your use of “purposely” instead of “purposefully” and the typo “sititing” and the misplacement of the apostrophes outside the quotation marks, I’m guessing you’re an editor at Yahoo!.

I suggest you try posting comments using a different alias and your real email address. The genuine Old Man uses his real email address, which I can view (but you can’t). So I’m confident of the identity of the real Old Man and sure that you ain’t him.

As for the identities of other commenters: Some comments are posted by me, and all of my comments are under the name Laura. I don’t know if other comments are made by “grumpy Yahoo! employees.” Some folks identify themselves as employees of Yahoo!; others allege they work for Google.

Thank you for a little information in this world full of errors. Misplaced apostrophes and the “bring vs take” problems make me go crazy. Some of the typos in mainstream media leave me wondering if I’m the only one who bothers to notice them.

I’ve been reading this blog for the last few months. All I want to know is how do these people — who make all these errors — still have a job? doesn’t yahoo care about the quality of the writing on its website?

“The transition from World Wide Web site to Web site to website as a single uncapitalized word mirrors the development of other technological expressions which have tended to take unhyphenated forms as they become more familiar. Thus email is gaining ground over the forms E-mail and e-mail, especially in texts that are more technologically oriented. Similarly, there is an increasing preference for closed forms like homepage, online, and printout.”

JD,
I focus on the grammatical gaffes, terrible typos, monstrous misspellings, etc. made by the writers and editors of Yahoo! and all its sites (including Yahoo! TV, Yahoo! Music, Yahoo! omg!). It’s not that I dislike Yahoo! Shine, it’s just that it provides a wealth of material for Terribly Write.

I really like your blog. It is very informative. I work as a language coach, and I really pay attention to grammar, spelling, and punctuation. I am going to include you in my blogroll. More power! I hope to read mroe from you. 🙂

Laura, this is a fantastic site! It’s bookmarked, subscribed to, and going on my blogroll. I am looking forward to spending a LOT more time here to laugh and learn. Brilliant!
Kelly (http://clearbluewindow.wordpress.com/)

Do you take requests? I try to be careful but I never claim to be perfect. If you had a look at my site I’d appreciate the feedback. I’m sure there are common mistakes I don’t even notice myself. I took copy editing in college. The main thing I learned was how easy it is to muck up a sentence.

Wow. I’m really surprised Yahoo! doesn’t have you under contract by now! They need you. I just found your blog from Simone Benedict’s Blog roll. I will be back–and I will make my teenage son visit, as well.

Someone here is clearly mad about Yahoo!… I understand your motivation and I can tell… I can’t stand when people writes “you” as “yah”, for example. But you lose all your credibility as you post ONLY Yahoo! mistakes. I have seen worst mistakes in “prestigious” media like Nature, Reuters, AP (among others) than the Yahoo!’s “terrible” lapses appointed by you.

**By the way, before you start to criticize, I am from Costa Rica and I don’t have any connection (except for a mail account that I don’t use anymore) with Yahoo! Just think this blog is unfair…

I really don’t understand how I could lose credibility because I choose to write about the mistakes made by writers working for one of the largest Internet companies in the world. With half a billion users, it’s hardly immune from criticism. My credibility should be based on facts: Either I’m right or I’m not.

I also don’t see what is “unfair” about this blog. I don’t write about grannies blogging about their grandkids or about the greengrocer who can’t spell “potatoes.” I write about the work of scores of paid professionals whose work reflects on themselves and their employer. Nothing unfair about that.

Not only are your assessments accurate but visual (far more interesting that The Diacritics). I’m enough of a grammar nut that I think people genuinely get upset having conversations with me. You point out grammar issues even I would have missed which is quite a feat. Thank you, for making The World a better Place, 😉

The Diacritics is not a grammar blog – unless, I suppose, your native language is Sanskrit. It is a monument to the colossal egos of two young law students who think pseudo-intellectual dissertations culled from their college linguistics texts constitute a grammar blog. They seem to have switched their academic interests to law – a good choice, considering their “grammar” blog is a crime.

Like the real Old Man, but unlike the fake “Old Man“, I like your site, too. There is zero excuse for bad grammar. As long as people present bad grammar as a professional product, there is a need and a place for those who make fun of same.
Thank you!

Hi, Laura! I’ve been looking for a site such as this for a while now, and I am pleased with what I’ve discovered here. I’m a retired language arts teacher who enjoys all things pertaining to words. I am a writer now and will be checking in here frequently. Thanks for your efforts.

Oh, I missed that one! Or maybe it’s just on the Yahoo! home page in your area. There’s certainly no shortage of typos on yahoo.com — and throughout Yahoo!. If you find others and are moved to submit them, please take a screenshot and send to terriblywrite@yahoocom. I promise to either give you full credit or keep you anonymous!

I am beginning to think Yahoo! has outsourced their editing jobs to India. Samara Mackareth is one of the worst grammatical offenders! Here is today’s – “Those are the politically plays we flagged this week.” . Idiocracy isn’t just a movie anymore. Slowly but surely we are becoming completely illiterate.

I don’t think Yahoo! has real editors, at least as the rest of the world knows them. So, I don’t think the company is outsourcing the editing. Or the writing. It just seems that way because Yahoo!’s standards for writing is so low.

After finding three Yahoo! front-page headlines with errors in them in three days, I discovered I had become very, VERY angry at them. For some reason, I felt like I deserved better from an institution that bills itself as a media company. Then I stumbled on this site and discovered the truth–the terribly write truth. What is wrong with their editors, and why don’t other companies have as many problems?

Chris, welcome to TW. I don’t know how to explain the number and severity of the errors that appear on Yahoo! every day. I don’t know if Yahoo! has editors for the front page. If it does, they are completely incompetent. Some Yahoo! properties (like Shine) have people with the title of editor (even senior editor), but I believe their responsibilities are limited to selecting articles that appear on the site and some writing. I don’t think they have the chops to edit content, rather than just selecting it. I haven’t looked extensively at other companies’ online presence so I don’t know if the problem is especially egregious at Yahoo!. As you can see from earlier comments, most Yahoo!ers are extremely defensive about their inability to use the English language better than a fifth grader.

Hello, Laura —
Thank you for visiting my business writing blog. It is heartening to know there are others fighting the good fight. What can you do with a generation who think “parallelism” is a political movement?

I’m really glad you liked my blog post!! (How did you even find it?) As you can see, I’ve just started. Looking at your page, I could probably spend a couple of hours here reading your blogs and loving every second of it!! Grammar gets me really excited. Hehehehe. From the looks of it, your blog covers a lot of the same stuff I plan to cover in mine. 🙂

I found your blog via the WordPress Reader. You’ve got lots of good company in the “blogging about grammar” world. I’ve been doing this for a few years and established by niche from the beginning — stuff found on Yahoo. I initially intended to focus on grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. mistakes made by the company’s professional writers and editors, but found that I just couldn’t ignore the other errors, such as factual mistakes.

Well, in that case, I’m very honored. I just didn’t want to have to nominate 7 other blogs and write 7 things about myself, because I am a private person and would be forced to lie and I hate to lie, but I would anyway. So, thanks.

That’s perfectly fine, Laura. One thing we can be here – ourselves. But I still enjoy your blog, so I reserve the right to work on that special award for you in the future. i will respect your wishes and present it privately : )

Wow Laura what an amazing blog you have created. My passion is web content and I’ll be visiting yours a lot, there’s so much useful info here. Your blog has inspired me to get working on mine. By the way, thanks for visiting my blog (http://twv2.wordpress.com ) – it was so good to find a comment after just a couple of days online.
Lauren

The velocity of bad writing is picking up speed in this internet “culture”.
People who have no business writing are using their keyboards to express themselves. Another factor is, everyone’s in such a hurry! Everything’s at internet speed. Poor writing on blogs I can overlook (even though I cringe) when I see it. But this trend is beginning to spill over into articles.
I can’t tell you how many times I get newsletters online that are really badly written! If I have time I go through the piece, make note of the errors, and write the person back imploring her to “get yourself an editor!” or at the very least, proofread before sending. I tell them that, “you discredit yourself right off the bat if your piece has glaring typos in it.” Instant turn off for me, personally. If something is badly written, I simply stop reading it! Too painful to endure.
I mean, some of these mistakes are so glaring it’s laughable! But it does no good. One woman with a newsletter responded by saying she was a American living in France and couldn’t afford an editor. I wrote back and said, “Do you have a friend who could proofread it for you? Glaring typos and poor writing automatically is a sure way to lose your audience. The thinking ones, anyway.” I even offered to be her proofreader. Never heard back. Boy, I bet she LOVES me!
As a lover of words and the English Language this ever growing trend of sloppy, poor and even bad writing is an assault upon my better nature.

It drives me nuts.

Thank you for creating a place for me to vent!!

You people are my tribe. We are a small lot, so we have to stick together!!

Amen to that! It seems that the worse a writer is, the more mistakes a writer makes, the more defensive they are. The good writers want to know about their slip-ups, correct them, and thank the critic. The real problem I have is with Yahoo!, a site that claims to have half a billion unique visitors a month. People around the world read the words of these so-called writers and believe what they read and believe that it is grammatically correct and spelled correctly. I would be ashamed to collect a paycheck and produce the quality of work that they do. But, what’s important to Yahoo! is the speed (as you noted) and the number of eyeballs on the words — not the accuracy or literacy of the text.

Most of the writers from Yahoo who’ve commented on this site are very defensive or don’t bother to defend themselves and simply attack me. I’ve had to block some ISP addresses (all from within Yahoo) because the profanity-laced comments weren’t suitable for my audience.

I believe I have had only one comment in all these years from a Yahoo writer who actually thanked me for pointing out an error she made, which she quickly corrected. It was the only time I ever found a mistake in her work, and I stopped reading her articles because they weren’t a source of fodder for this blog.

Look at this! Just today, on September 1st, from the AP: “Several groups, including labor organizations and those opposing President Barack Obama’s positions on various issues, plan to demonstrate outside the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte in tge coming days.” Sentence number one and you misspell the word “the.”

” With the billions and billions of pages floating out there in the Web galaxy — and the billions and billions of words they contain — it’s no surprise that you’ll notice an occasional typo or grammatical slip. But, every typo, misspelling, wrong word, and punctuation misstep erodes the credibility of a website.”

I am a writer and I do not use Spell Check.
This is because I know to spell.
If, and occasionally it does happen, there is a word I do not know how to spell, I look it up. I KNOW I dont know how to spell it because it doesn’t look right. And I want to be sure it’s correct before sending it out in public.

I won the 4th grade spelling bee. I got the gift of being a good speller in the same way I got the gift of having a musical ear.. ( this helps with writing, especially poetry). I got lucky. It’s easy for me. Like breathing.

Lots of brilliant, interesting people can’t spell. It’s a talent, like having good hand/eye coordination. Not everyone has it.

Those people know they cant spell.
Anyone who knows they cant spell and doesn’t use Spell Check is a moron.

You feel you don’t need to use a spell-checker, because you’re a “natural” speller. But if you had used one on the comment you posted, it would have indicated that you have a double period, that there’s an extraneous space after the left parenthesis, and that you missed the apostrophe in “can’t” (twice) and “don’t.” A spell-checker is not just for those writers who have trouble spelling; it helps those who think they are great spellers but who make the occasional (or multiple) typos. Writers who take pride in their work will use any tool available to help ensure their writing is error-free. Spell-check can’t find every mistake, but it can find many that you might overlook. Just so we’re clear.

Dear Laura,
(Well, THAT was interesting. . . in typing your name, I entered ‘Alura’. Not bad, for a typo . . .)

(ahem)

Dear Laura,

It was a quintessential Roy Neary Moment when I happened upon your blog today. Thanks to your efforts, I will finally be able to discard a certain pen I’ve carried with me for years. No, it’s not red; in fact, I cannot be certain it contains ink anymore. I do know it has a fine point, though, because it’s the one I jab into my eyeball every time I read literature published by my employer.

Thanks. It’s been a hundred years since I saw that movie, and I really didn’t pay much attention then, so now I know your allusion. Thanks! By the way, wasn’t that the movie that had something to do with musical notes used to communicate? And were Reese’s Pieces an integral part of the story line? Drew Barrymore?

Cortland, yes and no and no. Yes, there were notes used in an effort to communicate. No, there were no visible Reese’s Pieces. And Drew Barrymore and those Reese’s Pieces appeared in “E.T” — or maybe it was “Killer Klowns from Outer Space.” I get those two confused a lot.

It appears my allusion was more clumsy than clever, so I apologize and will attempt to elaborate. Roy Neary was indeed the name of Richard Dreyfuss’ character in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, and he did experience a life-changing encounter.
My reference to Mr. Neary was meant to describe the isolation, frustration, anxiety, ridicule and misunderstanding he’d endured in his obsessive quest to find the truth. When he finally meets like-minded believers who embrace and respect the truth, he becomes relieved and overjoyed.

For Cortland Writer:
Drew Barrymore and Reese’s Pieces are associated with the movie “E.T.”

This blog is amazing, and it’s quite a wake-up call to someone who’s an aspiring editor/reporter. I thank you very much for commenting on my blog- otherwise I would never have found this, and it put a huge smile on my face. You have a new follower 🙂

Thanks for the like on my blog. It seems you have a similar sense of humour to me and I’ve subscribed to the feed. You’re an inspiration – I’m still starting out on the blogging experience and finding it difficult but I will now endeavour to do more.

Keep at it! You’ll find it gets easier over time. BTW, I worked as an editor part-time when my kids were the same age as yours — my daughter was 9 and my son was 6! Looks like we have a lot more in common than just language and humor.

I’m an Australian, working as a volunteer editor for free online Japanese-English and Chinese-English dictionaries. The J-E one uses international English, including both American and British spellings, while the C-E one adheres to American English. I also translate professionally from Japanese into American English. I found your blog for the first time today while checking on the spelling and etymology of “ping-pong.”

You have a page on ping-pong where you write “Ping-Pong is a registered trademark; table tennis is the sport.” That’s clearly an American viewpoint—which is fair enough, since you seem to be writing exclusively about American English—since “ping-pong” (lowercase) is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “[t]he game of table tennis.” But while http://www.pingpong.com (which represents the views of the registered trademark owner, Escalade Sports) claims that Ping-Pong® is a brand of (table tennis) equipment, Merriam-Webster says that Ping-Pong is “used for table tennis” (i.e. it refers to the game).http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ping-pong
I take it you disagree with M-W?

By the way, ping-pong is referred to in Chinese as pīngpāng, which actually sounds very much like the American pronunciation of ping-pong, and the character representation of the Chinese word 乒乓 looks rather like a table tennis table!

I happened upon your website for the first time today through a series of links that started at passiveaggressivenotes.com. I now know that I’m not alone; as a technical writer, I have many language-based “pet peeves,” but few friends who would care (much less with whom to commiserate). I feel as though I’ve found a sort of home, and after browsing just a few pages on this site, am now considering e-mailing Yahoo News and asking if they’re hiring editors. Oh, who am I kidding? If they cared, we wouldn’t see such a surfeit of incompetence! 🙂

You’re among friends here. I started my professional life as a tech writer, which was great discipline in clear and concise writing. If you care about quality writing, I don’t think you’d be happy at Yahoo! — I’m not even sure they have editors in the traditional sense; certainly there’s a dearth of competent editors.

Laura – I have a major issue with your site. While I think it’s fine you’re calling our grammatical issues on public articles, why are you specifically calling out the authors of those articles? Not only are you calling out these authors publicly, but by tagging them you’re also making sure you’re creating a negative perception of these people via google search. To make matters worse, you’re calling out specific people at Yahoo where you used to work. You’re also trying to remain anonymous while claiming you have no bias in targeting Yahoo and their authors. To even the playing field why don’t you just let people know your name is Laura V******n and add a disclaimer that you worked at Yahoo. Otherwise it just looks petty and vindictive…there’s really no reason to call out individuals at Yahoo like you’ve been doing.

ThePenisMightier

P.S. Not really fun when someone anonymously uses your real name is it?

I never mention the author’s name in any post, although I may include the author’s name (when it is in a byline) in a tag. I don’t see the problem. If a person puts his or her name to an article, that information is public; I would expect them to stand behind what they wrote. If I were writing a review of a book, I would include the author’s name. If I were reviewing a movie, I’d include the name of the director and the actors. I don’t create a negative impression of anyone; it is the writer who is creating the impression on the reader. If a name appears in a Google search because it is mentioned numerous times on Terribly Write, that might just be one measure of the quality of the writer’s work.

I don’t comment on misspellings on a greengrocer’s sign or a blog by a granny about her grandkids. I write about the work of paid, professional writers whose work is read by millions of people around the world. There should be some standard for accuracy and readability, but there seems to be none at Yahoo!. The most common error reported on TW is misspelling. More than half the errors reported here would go away if the Yahoo! staffers simply used a spell checker. They have access to all kinds of online resources, human and digital editors, and yet the egregious errors continue. Instead of griping about a blogger who points out mistakes, why don’t you try eliminating them? Is there no support for quality writing at Yahoo!? Is that the real issue?

By the way, I have never denied having worked for Yahoo!. As for “leveling the playing field” — I am a lone retiree whose job is not to do your editing for you. Yahoo! is one of the largest Internet companies in the world, with thousands of employees. And yet you all seem to think I’m the cause of the state of your original content.

From the puerility of the ID, to the petty content of the message, to the ignorance of thinking you have hidden your name or previous experience at Yahoo!, it’s pretty obvious that Penis is a pretty apt description. 🙂

“By the way, I have never denied having worked for Yahoo!”. Then why is it not clearly labeled on your site that you worked for Yahoo? This is the difference between coming off as objective vs. being subjective (which you are in this case.) Adding a disclaimer that you worked at Yahoo in your About Us section, would make it much more clear on why of all the news sites on the web, you single out Yahoo and their writers.

I do not work for Yahoo nor have I ever worked for Yahoo. I have a friend who told me about your site and how people at Yahoo were upset about it. You’re assuming some of these people are ‘professional writers’ when in fact, they are not and create news content as part of their job – not the single basis for their job.

I also don’t think you have any idea how you’re affecting these people by tagging them in the posts. Do you have any insight into whether or not the content creators have additional proofreaders or editors that can review their content? Or how that content is produced and under what timelines? I don’t know myself, but again, it seems you have no respect for other individuals. Google search some of the people you have tagged and see what comes up under their names. Would you appreciate it if something negative turned up under Google search for your name?

Finally, my user ID is The Pen Is Mightier….I thought you would have gotten the SNL Jeopardy joke but more seriously, the subtext of the name and the your disregard for other Yahoo people as a former employee and now ‘retiree’.

The fact that I once worked for Yahoo! is irrelevant to this blog. It does not make me subjective; either I am right about the mistakes I report or I am wrong. Citing a grammatical error is not subjective, although there are times when honest people can disagree about the need for a comma or the preferred spelling of a word. Either the verb agrees with the subject or it doesn’t. That’s completely objective.

If someone writes and gets paid to write, then I’d call them a professional writer. I take it you mean that they are not trained as writers or editors and that they lack the education, experience, and management support to do their jobs. That is a sad statement about the company they work for. When a company has the reach that Yahoo! does, I would hope that it realizes it has a moral and ethical obligation to publish accurate and understandable information.

The circumstance under which an article is written is completely irrelevant to the reader. The reader only sees the final product. And readers do care about the quality of the writing. There are numerous times that I quote Yahoo!’s readers regarding a poorly written article. But basically what you’re saying is that some folks at Yahoo! don’t have the time and support they need to produce a quality product, and by that, supporting my contention that they don’t produce a quality product.

No, I didn’t get your reference to SNL. But again, you support my contention that quality writing is important. The pen is mightier than the sword. And with its reach around the globe, to hundreds of millions of people, Yahoo! is wielding a pen much mightier than mine. At least I use a spell-checker.

“Affecting people by tagging them in posts?” People whose byline is already on the atrocious writing that’s being commented on? This is quite possibly one of the lamest, most self-serving, irrational, illogical, content-free replies I have ever read on this site. SNL reference or not, you’re an adolescent jerk with an apparent ax to grind and absolutely no basis on which to grind it. Come back when you have something useful or intelligent to say. Based on what you’ve posted so far, that should be approximately… never.

Laura – That is ridiculous that you state that “Yahoo! is irrelevant to this blog” when you worked at Yahoo, are targeting Yahoo writers and solely targeting Yahoo itself. I’m not arguing that correcting grammar is objective or subjective. But your argument that you only target Yahoo news because of it’s reach is completely ridiculous. Why not target the WSJ, NYT, Google News or others? You are specifically calling out individuals based on a bias you have and that is not objective. It’s really starting to feel like sour grapes. I have no idea if you were forced out of Yahoo but it’s certainly starting to feel that way.

I also have no idea what people at Yahoo are paid and what they are paid for. I don’t work there and don’t have insight into their job requirements. However, it’s very clear based on your responses that you are delusional if you think that by tagging and calling out individual writers that you are somehow doing the internet a service. Seriously, what basis would you have for calling out individuals vs. just commenting on the grammar in an article?

Old Man – first off, I don’t know you nor was I talking to you. Here’s something intelligent for you xxxxxxx I was trying to be nice pointing out the apparent bias on this site and that it’s xxxxxxx to call out individuals. It’s obvious given you comment literally 5 minutes after Laura that any responses you have will be subjective. I didn’t have an axe to grind but now I do – with you.

Penis, please reread my comment. I did NOT say “Yahoo is irrelevant to this blog” — I said my having worked there is irrelevant. And it should be quite evident why I don’t “target” the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, or any other legitimate news site — because they do a good job reporting the news accurately and with correct English. I can open yahoo.com and know within 5 minutes that I have fodder for at least one blog post. Why would I choose to spend hours reading other sites only to find the occasional typo? Yahoo is just that easy as a source for a post.

I do not have a bias for or against Yahoo. You probably haven’t noticed that there are large areas in the Yahoo site that have never appeared in TW because they are well-written. And there are areas in the Yahoo network that appear over and over again because I know that I can find an error quickly and that it will be of interest to TW readers.

I take it you (and perhaps Yahoo’s writers and editors) would prefer I not tag names. In other words, it’s a case of “please don’t mention my name because people can see how many mistakes I make.” Perhaps if the writers and editors spent more time figuring out how to avoid those mistakes I would have nothing to write about.

I have also edited your comment to remove language that I find offensive.

Laura – if you do not think there is any bias to your writing then why do you not put a disclaimer on your site that you had previously worked for Yahoo? Your continued defense that it’s irrelevant that you previously had worked at Yahoo but fail to list that on your site is ludicrous at best.

As for your position on tagging names – karma is a b***h. I did the edit for you. Do not be surprised to find your name, your relation to Yahoo and your bias against Yahoo posting up on Google search results very soon. It will even be tagged against “terribly write” so that all of your readers (and future readers) can search for your site but then also find additional information on you. Given you have little regard for posting names of others, you shouldn’t have any problem if your name is associated with this blog and relationship with Yahoo. It’s all public knowledge right?

And Old Man…please get a life. Do you not have anything better to do than cyber stalk Laura and then come to her defense when legitimate questions and issues are posed to her? Congrats, you win at calling others dumb and stupid. Where should I send the gold star and blue ribbon to?

Penis, this is getting ridiculous and juvenile. I use writer’s names because they have put their name on their work. It is in the byline. I learned very early that if you put your name on something, it means you stand behind your work. The name is public information and if the writers are upset because I’ve tagged their names, then perhaps they would be more comfortable omitting a byline and remaining anonymous.

So, now you’re threatening me? For someone who claims to not work for Yahoo, you seem awfully invested in this site. Your bullying threats ring hollow. Anyone can now see on this site that I once worked for Yahoo. As I have repeatedly told you, I never denied it. And a simple search shows my full name on the first page of search results. But, hey, if you think you’ve uncovered some deep, dark secret about me based on your exceptional sleuthing abilities, go ahead and reveal it. I assure you, it will be met with a collective yawn.

Laura – I wasn’t intending to be ‘juvenile’ and any ‘juvenile’ responses were to Old Man. He started with the name calling and I’ll address his replies independently.

I respect your opinion on tagging people but do not necessarily agree with it. I feel to be fair, you should be clearly listing your previous association with Yahoo to provide transparency to your readers.

I was also never ‘threatening’ you. If anybody has been doing cyber bullying it’s been you. You tag Yahoo writers claiming they’re ‘public’ targets, yet you hide your name on this site. It’s common to list a disclaimer or bias when you’re commenting on a company where you have an existing or prior relationship with. But, I guess in your world, those ethics don’t exist.

Overall, I like what you’re doing with the site. I just don’t agree with how you’re going about it with little to no transparency.

Wow, just when you think it can’t get any more juvenile, Penis steps it up a notch. Apparently his “friends” at Yahoo! have no problem attaching their name to a byline, but when errors are found in their work, they prefer to be anonymous. Terribly Write lists a writer’s name in a tag only when the writer is already identified by his/her byline. Yet Penis feels he must ride his white horse to the rescue of the feelings of his poor “friends.” And then has the gall to advise others to “get a life.”

I’ve been reading this blog since 2008 and once worked with Laura in a past life. Yes, I often respond to idiotic criticism of this site because (a) I enjoy the site and (b) Laura’s responses are, in my opinion, too courteous and mild for some of the morons (like Penis) who get offended by the blog and post juvenile drivel to prove a nonexistent point.

Classy moves, Penis. Go for it – devote your life to posting information about others to Google. And then decide who really needs a life.

Just so you know: Nearly EVERY SINGLE entry wherein you point out errors on my stories are errors that were INTRODUCED BY MY EDITORS. I have always carried a very heavy workload, and, yes, I more than cringe when I catch these mistakes. (Trust me, I’ve caught a whole lot more before you’ve had the chance to scan for them.) Now, in the future, I’ll be forced to explain why this site appears AT THE TOP of Google search rankings for MY NAME (NOT MY EDITORS).

Please stop. You, and you alone, are damaging my reputation – one for which I’ve worked extremely hard over several years.

Writer,
If errors reported by TW were introduced by your editors, then I think you need to address your complaints with them or their superiors. It is they, and not this blog, that are damaging your reputation. Do they know about Terribly Write? If not, you’d do yourself (and them) a favor by introducing it to them. And, you are always free to comment on the mistakes noted here and let us know that you’re not the culprit. And neither am I.

Please help me – I’m getting lost in the logic here… Terribly Write is damaging a writer’s reputation by pointing out errors introduced by the writer’s editors? So if Terribly Write stops pointing out the errors, they’ll disappear and the writer’s stellar reputation will be regained? How exactly will that happen?

A solution to consider: Remove all mentions of the byline (whether it’s in a screenshot or in text form) in these critiques — past, present, and future. Link outs to the original article are fine and justified. But to publicly name the writer — thereby forcing them to wear a lifetime badge of shame via their Google search results, directly threatening their future career — is to presume it’s the writer’s failing in all instances. I’m ready to shed my electronic scarlet letter, Laura. Please do the right thing.

Actually, I now see it is happening because you are in the habit of tagging writers’ names in your posts. Can you please remove these specific name tags, at least in my case? (I assume you can figure out who I am based on the required email for the comments field.) I hope you reconsider this aspect of your tagging policy.

I think that for a fashion person, CONSTANTLY writing about the Catherine, Dutchess of Cambridge, Lauren Tuck should have the manners to learn to call her by correct title: Catherine, Dutchess of Cambridge. There is no happily, newly married woman who wants to be called by her maiden name, and it is incredibly rude not to use her correct title!!! Come on, get with the program!!!! You are not her best friend, so don’t call her Kate. She is now married, so Middleton is SOOOOO insulting and ridiculous. Please make us proud as Americans and have a bit of class and education and respect, please????? Catherine, Dutchess of Cambridge is her name.

It isn’t just Lauren Tuck who refers to the Duchess of Cambridge as Kate Middleton. It’s on the front page of Yahoo (yahoo.com) today. I think they use that name to attract readers because that’s the most familiar way to refer to the duchess. Rude, but familiar.

That’s the problem is that it is constantly wrong in very prominent places. The Royal family truly have a lot of class. The Princes are well educated. They fight in the military. They support heavy duty charities with their status, etc. They are not shallow fakers, like the most admired people in America. Hopefully, someone who calls themselves and Editor could lead the way to higher ground, and use her correct title, even if it means a few less readers for a few months.

Are you related to the Lauren Tuck who wrote the puerile pice of tripe “Jaden Smith Wears a Dress, Doesn’t Care What You Think” for Yahoo? You should really sue her for debasing the English language under your byline. The moron thinks that “hater” is a synonym for someone who refuses to let mass media shove social engineering down his throat! Imagine that!!

As a fellow ex-Yahoo! employee who has been featured on your blog, I would like to point out one thing: I was not provided with a copy editor for my writing before it was published. Video producers were required to write copy that appears identical to that of print writers on the surface, but we were not afforded the same resources. We repeatedly asked for a copy editor but were not given one. It’s mortifying to appear on your site for errors I strove to avoid. I’m usually the English nerd who loves pointing out those types errors. It has been a humbling experience.

It’s a shame that Yahoo doesn’t support its writers so that they can produce quality content (although there are some writers that require more than a competent editor). It must be demoralizing for the conscientious staffers and it’s insulting to readers. But I’ll never understand why there are so many errors that could be corrected with a simple spell-checker. Or why writers don’t do a quick Internet search to check facts like the spelling of the name of the person they’re writing about.

Yahoo has a cofounder that is Taiwanese. What do you expect? Lauren Tuck is not Taiwanese yet, her writing on Selena Gomez and Hollywood’s sexy dress for a new movie shoot with Adam Sandler has mistakes. It is “widely” over dressed, not “wildly”. I immediately look to see the name and then I will know the nationality. Yahoo’s cofounder has no brains to hire people who can write properly, have articles edited, and then the Yahoo search engine has no spell check when you blog.

Many times I know I have misspelled a word and it was a simple mistake. I had to change it. It should have been done by a spell check in Yahoo’s system. Even as I write this, the word ‘many” had a “t” instead of a “y”. WHY did it not provide an option of the word “many”? When I left clicked there was no word “many” listed.

Hi there! I found your blog interesting and I’ve got something to ask you….
I’m gathering (inviting) a bunch of very talented but not so famous bloggers to share articles to TOAC and create something better than the Huffington Post or any other news blog.
I want you to be a part of it. Please visit our site https://yourthoughtmatters.wordpress.com/recruitments/ if this interests you.

My name is Danielle and I am currently studying Public Relations in college. I just wanted to stop by to let you know how thrilled I was to have seen the existence of your blog. Other than making me chuckle in a few places, I really do appreciate the time you have taken to compile a blog solely dedicated to updating the world on proper writing form. I laughed when I found your blog because I find myself either publicly or in my mind, trying to police others on how to spell on a daily basis both in physical life and in the online world. Public Relations teaches you the extreme importance of knowing how to communicate through words, and right now we are even using a stylebook designed on how to write journalistically. My one professor will fully take as many marks off of your paper for as many times you use the word “that” in a place he finds you should not be using it despite your protests. Many Public Relations professionals also produce journalistic pieces, typically intended for the public, further justifying a specific class on how to write – something many people would probably assume was established in grade school. Despite the importance of grade school teachings, however, I find it difficult to understand that at a certain age and beyond, how or why many people still struggle with how to spell and use certain words properly. I understand level of education is an important factor to consider. However, it may be ignorant but I just thought it was a given how certain considerably BASIC words should be used and how they are spelled. If anyone would like to further themselves career-wise, on online on social media presence level, and or even in PERSON in conversing daily with others, he or she should know the basics of spelling. I will go so far as to admit that even today in the year 2016, I am still shocked and disappointed to see the world’s general lack of knowledge in how to spell and use the simplest of words.

To add to the above, I think many of these grammar problems can be attributed to the public’s love affair with the world of celebrity, and looking to celebrity writings for reinforcement and or guidance on how to deal with things in life. Unfortunately, I think many celebrities love the use of slang and this further gives way to improper use of words. A big one I notice with many celebrity writings is the misuse of “your” versus “you’re”. You are a celebrity and many (young) people look up to you for whatever reason. We live in a society of ‘monkey see, monkey do’ – if the celebrity spells it this way, I should too! I never understood how “your” versus “you’re” was not implemented in the mind of everyone in this world to be a basic, fundamental understanding of how to indicate simple possession.

I could continue to express how disgruntled I am with today’s improper use of grammar, but I would not stop writing here if that were the case. Thank you for taking the time to try to continue educating others on this topic. I will be sure to refer many people here, after I have arrested them, for spelling rehab. This is a good clinic to start at!

Dear Laura,
I just came across your blog and I am truly enjoying reading the comments and replies. In fact, I became so engrossed with it that I couldn’t stop reading when I needed to go to sleep. The next thing I knew, it was 5:37 in the morning! Haha! Oh well.
I have some questions regarding the last paragraph of a reply of yours from April 27, 2012 at 9:19 am.
1) You stated, “It just seems that way because Yahoo!’s standards for writing is so low.” Shouldn’t the words “standards for writing is so low” read as “standards for writing are so low” so the verb agrees with the word “standards?”
2) Then shouldn’t the word “because” be preceded by a comma?
3) Also, the next to the last sentence reads as, “Or the writing.” Is it considered proper grammar to omit the subject of a sentence?
Thanks for your advice. I’ll continue to enjoy your humor.

I’m happy you’re enjoying TW. I try to make the blog both informative and entertaining. And sometimes I succeed.
I’m unable to find the comment you refer from April 27, 2012, but I’ll try to address your questions.
1. Yes, you’re correct. The verb should be “are” and not “is.”
2. Do you think there’s a possibility of misreading that sentence without the comma? I didn’t, so I didn’t include one before “because.”
3. In informal writing, such as this blog, it is perfectly acceptable to use sentence fragments. I use them often since they reflect my speech patterns. And my writing style.

Semi-literacy seems to be a badge of honour nowadays. Someone on Facebook, in an abusive rant, accused me of being “none too bright”. When I pointed it out, they just refused to accept that it was wrong. Thank you for writing this blog. I find it therapeutic to read.